Fixed the KAF2 on the K2

With the help of Stan KF4BY, spotting a subtle solder bridge near the pots - the KAF2 is now doing its job. Heard K7K on 80m this morning but could not bust thru the pileup with 5 watts.

Got DX monitor thanks to the tip from Matt KQ4VY

SC Statewide Simulated Emergency Test by Tillman Cuttino

I'm happy to report a rousing success for the Simulated Emergency Test this morning! Thanks to (in no particular order), Johnny WD4DYH, Wyatt KJ4CTD, Ariel NY4G, Phil KG4FQG, Ken KD4PH, Bob N3PT, Chris KJ4GJG, Wayne K4VAS, Chris K4FLL, Nathan KJ4RQZ, Josh KG4PFJ, Robert WA4HRK, Tom KB1EFA and Greg KI4SVQ. These are the folks that I remember as either attendees or checkins -- I'm sure there were more.

Around 0830, Phil opened the ARES Net in standby mode and took checkins from responding ARES members. The plan was for most of the group to rally at the Red Cross at 0900 while Bob and Tillman met at the EOC at 0915. Phil kept close tabs on all logged-in stations and did a great job of seeking status updates and tracking our assets.

While enroute, several of us checked into the statewide linked net called by K4EMD at the state EOC in Columbia. The SCHEART VHF repeaters were then unlinked at 0900 to allow users to experiment with various direct DTMF links around the state.

Our group quickly established operations on VHF repeater and simplex frequencies at the Red Cross and Bob and Tillman soon had the EOC's 2-meter radio on the air. From the EOC, we contacted the Red Cross (both repeater and simplex), several ARES operators in various locations around the upstate, the Spartanburg EOC (repeater only -- simplex was not successful at the time), the state EOC (via SCHEART direct link), and the Berkley County EOC (again via SCHEART link). We tested the radio's memory, VFO and DTMF capabilities. Special thanks to GCOEM's Rachel Ethun for coming in on a Saturday to let us in the EOC and for Scott and Jay's help to authorize our access. This was the first time in a long time that those radios were on the air for an official drill and we were very excited for the opportunity.

Meanwhile over at the Red Cross, Johnny led the group through the activation of multiple 2m radios in the Ready Room and Ariel temporarily swapped out the existing TS-820S for a very capable TS-2000 and quickly established HF communications on both the 80 and 40 meter bands. Ariel logged contacts with K4EMD at the state EOC on both bands! The Red Cross crew continued to experiment with various combinations of repeaters and simplex frequencies to give the systems a thorough workout, and they performed extremely well. Much like the EOC, it's been many moons since the Red Cross Ready Room equipment has seen this kind of use and testing. Special thanks to Tanya Carter for arranging our access today!

As an additional bonus, we applied an antenna analyzer to every piece of feedline we could find along the Ready Room wall and they all indicated very good SWR matches on their intended bands.

We wrapped up operations around 1130, secured the facilities, and headed over to Wendy's to celebrate the day's success over burgers and fries (which carried its own adventures including rendering first aid to a woman in diabetic shock and parking lot repairs to my truck's electrical system -- thanks Johnny and Phil!).

Be sure to check out (and "like") our new Greenville ARES Facebook page, where you can find a few photos of the day's event!
http://www.facebook.com/GreenvilleARES

I had a blast and hope you did too!
73 until next time,
Tillman AJ4IK

QRP ARCI 1000 Miles per Watt Award

I just received the 1000 miles per watt award from QRP ARCI for contact made with Amateur Radio Station E7HQ in Bosnia on July 9, 2011 for a distance of 5892 miles as calculated by QRZ.com based on the QTH locations for a calculated 1228 miles per watt running 5 Watts. The contact has been confirmed on eQSL.cc. The radio rig used for this contact was an Elecraft K2 and the mode was CW.

Parting with Old Faithful MFJ949D

I am about to ship my trusty MFJ949D to W5GTL in South Dakota. I had worked ARRL WAS Mixed Mode #55,400 and worked 48 states QRP and 73 DX entities with that tuner in a short span of 2 years. I have only been licensed as a General Class since April of 2009. My first contacts were SSB with the Kenwood TS830S. I probably worked 2/3 of the 50 states with that radio. I acquired a yaesu FT897D in March 2010 and proceeded to bag a fair number of states using PSK. In October of 2010 I started to use CW as my main operating mode and have been able to get the most difficult states SD and AK using that mode. Since then I operate mostly CW and got most of my DX entities and 48 states using CW and stateside - mostly at 5 watts. Good bye to the old MFJ manual tuner.

QRP WAS Update and Other Things

Picked up 4 new states during the North American QSO Party: Oklahoma, Utah, Montana, and Delaware. State count is now up to 48 worked and 40 confirmed by QSL cards. Only missing the usual suspects - AK and ND.

Did reasonably well during the NAQCC Sprint in July. I would have done much better if I had used a straight key with the 2X multiplier but I am so bad with a straight key

Did the Spartan Sprint in early August and submitted my results. The results are below. I placed second in the TUBBY category.

South Coast Amateur Radio Service

Checked into the South Coast Amateur Radio Service

Their URL is http://southcars.com/main/ncs_schedule

Membership Number is forthcoming

Ariel

IARU Worldwide DX Contest CW

I made about 50 contacts during the contest. The benefits for participating included two new additional states QRP - CA and NM plus a few more new DX contacts.

Case for the K2

See the K2 Project Page for details

K2 is Done!!!!!

Made three contacts so far KS4L - Huntsville AL AQP Contest; W4AN, Columbus GA, AQP Contest; and first ragchew on the K2 with KT4CW Scott in Brewton, AL.

CW Meetup tonight with KJ4YQK and W4DJW in the following frequencies:

3540 on 80 meters is primary
7030 on 40 meters is the alternate

TIME: Around 9 PM after net check-in

K2 is Practically Done

Except for a missing capacitor and an RF Choke which I broke while desoldering, the K2 is ready for the final alignment and test. Everything has worked out so far and knock on wood - I hope it will continue to do so. Accumulated time for the build has been 80 hours for the basic radio. The options I plan to install are as follows:

Noise Blanker
Single Side Band Module
Automatic Antenna Tuner
160 m receive and extra antenna receive jack
Audio filter
Internal 2900 mA-hr battery

All the modules are ready to build. The battery kit has already been finished

Added New Link for VK2DX K2 Project

This is by far the best photo-documentation of a K2 build I have ever seen and it is by VK2DX and the link is on http://www.vk1aa.com/K2/k2.html

K2 Project Started

Work has been really, really busy and I have just a little amount of time to dedicate to radio activities. But at least, I started the K2 project and did some soldering of the control board. There are not many pictures to share yet as I only have been able to solder a few components. I have added some new links related to building the K2 and these are really helpful. You can read my K2 page for a detailed update on the project.

Worldwide DX Contest and K2 Project

Two weeks ago or thereabouts was the worldwide DX contest - 2/19 and 2/20. I was able to add 30 new DX entities while working 82 DX stations.

I got Hawaii twice. Once was on 40m QRP and the other time was on 15m QRO.

I have not had too much HF operation of late. I have not even started building the K2. I built a work table on which to build the K2 on. The table is finished and now it is just the time commitment that is necessary.

Closing Out January

I have not posted in a while - 2 weeks. It does not look like I will get the K3Y/6 station as I had wanted. I had taken my rig to PA with a Buddistick Vertical and it appears totally deaf right now. I don't know if it is the snow cover, the atmospheric conditions or what but I could not hear anything. So I miss being on the air. I also missed the CW training net on Saturday mornings.

During the month long event, I have contacted 27 K3Y stations (some are duplicate) and got a bunch of region 7 at QRP power. I have contacted every region except for W6.

On 1/22 I heard WU0L calling CQ. He hails from SD so I was excited to get only my second SD contact. WU0L is vacationing in Weslaco TX so it is not to be a SD contact but a second TX contact with the same station.

On 1/22 I made a phone contact with J79XB1 - Seth Sjostrom (who hails from Sweden) from the DX entity Dominica near Guadeloupe in the Carribean Sea. On the same evening I called Peter Horvath HA8RM in Hungary also on phone. I was at QRO power levels for both at 100 watts.

I worked the NAQCC Sprint on 1/20 and was able to bag a couple more new states at QRP power AR and AL both in region 4. My exchanges were clumsy and inefficient and was only able to muster about 15 QSOs in 2 hours which is a little bit below middle of the pack after having reviewed the Sprint results. It was still a lot of fun though and was cited in the NAQCC newsletter as a first timer.

Recent Contacts

Still Only 41 DX entities now,
33/50 states worked QRP - 5 more than last update
50/50 states worked - waiting QSL from SD - 49 confirmed

SKCC has the 5th Anniversary Special Event during the month of January and 89 operators are calling from all over the country. I made 13 contacts and got 9 out of 10 calling regions. I am only missing region 6 (CA) which would make a complete sweep. I used QRP power for most of the contacts unless QRM or poor band conditions warranted. I did get some hard states QRP - Wyoming and Washington - in the process.

I plan to work more region 7 and region 0 in the coming days to fill the QRP holes and I expect to work AK, HI, CO, UT, ID, NV and of course CA.

I did not work DX the last few days as I concentrated on SKCC special event QSO's